The Dulo family stood on the Bulgarian throne through the famous Asparuh and Tervel. But their background, their successors Cormesius and Sevar, do not seem to stand out with too great achievements. At least this is the impression the historian researcher inevitably has, since both rulers fail to find a place in the chronographies of the Byzantine chroniclers Theophanes the Confessor and Patriarch Nicephorus.
In this period, there were no wars of territorial expansion with the Byzantine Empire, no interference in the eternal palace intrigues in Constantinople, and Comersius and Sevar seem to lead a calm and peaceful government.
This seems to confirm the old maxim that unless wars are fought or disasters or crises occur, history has a convenient habit of “forgetting” episodes of prolonged peace. And given the lack of information, this rule is confirmed – the last notices in the Byzantine chronicles concerning the Bulgarians date immediately after the defeat of Maslama’s Arab army in front of the walls of Constantinople in 718.
Events in Bulgaria remain hazy until 756. From the little we know from domestic and Western sources, we can piece together a very fragmentary picture of the decades separating Tervel’s reign from the dynastic crisis in Bulgaria in the mid-eighth century.
According to the prevailing hypotheses, Tervel ruled the Bulgarian state until his death in 721, when Kormesius ascended the Pliskov throne. This, of course, cannot be confirmed by the Name Book of Bulgarian Khans, in which the ruler who ruled after Tervel is not named.
Only the years of his reign (28 years) and his lineage (Dulo) are mentioned.
The conclusion that Tervel’s successor was Kormesius comes from several different sources – the chronicle of the western chronicler Sigebert, who explicitly mentions Kormesius as the ruler of the Bulgarians in 727, and the chronicle of the monk Alberich, who names Kormesius as “tertius rex”, that is, third ruler after Asparuch and Tervel.
A curious glimpse into the past of Cormesius, already at the time of Tervel’s rule, is also provided by Theophanes’ chronicle. From the words of the Byzantine chronicler, we learn that Cormesius was perhaps present at the conclusion of the treaty between Bulgaria and Byzantium in 717 and even participated in the war against the Arabs in 717-718 as a commander of large military formations.
A similar opinion is advocated by a number of prominent Bulgarian historiographers such as P. Mutafchiev and Veselin Beshevliev. The name of Cormesius is also found once in the bas-reliefs around the Madar horseman, where a badly damaged inscription conveys an event, probably significant enough to have been carved into the stone by order of the Bulgarian ruler. The read text has large missing spaces.
The endlessly vague meaning of this inscription gives rise to conflicting interpretations and hypotheses that will probably never be confirmed. As far as can be estimated, the payments in the form of gold, which the Byzantine Empire annually sends to Bulgaria since the time of the peace treaty concluded in 716, are being discussed.
It is the second part of the text that arouses far more interest among historiographers and fuels the fire of their interpretations.
By all accounts, it appears that a diplomatic meeting took place where “Archon Krumesis” invited someone to negotiate.
We can estimate that this probably happens after the next payment of the annual tribute, when after the distribution of the gold, a discussion begins on some controversial issue.
With whom Cormesius made agreements and what was the outcome of them, we can only guess.
Particularly curious is the last passage, according to which the dispute apparently escalated into war after the treaties were broken. However, the Byzantine chronicles are silent about such a war, which deepens the mystery surrounding the damaged text.
Of the further rule of Cormesius, absolutely nothing is known. Moreover, historiography is currently unable to even determine with certainty the moment of the end of his reign. The reason is that in the chronology of the Bulgarian rulers of this period there is another person who ruled over the Bulgarian state with a name similar to that of Kormesius, namely – Kormisosh.
According to the Directory of Bulgarian Khans, however, the Kormisosh in question belongs to a completely different noble family – Vokil,
which means that the two rulers cannot be the same person.
The years of rule indicated in the Name Book also do not ease the task of historiographers, because they do not coincide with the chronology established by the Byzantine chroniclers. According to them, in 756, the head of state of Bulgaria was Khan Vinekh.
At the moment, it is somewhat tentatively accepted that after the death of Kormesius, his successor to the throne, Sevar, managed to retain power in Bulgaria in the conditions of relatively good-neighborly relations with the Byzantine Empire until the 40s of the 8th century. The directory of Bulgarian khans is the only source, which furnishes any particulars of Sevar, which leads us also to refrain from entering into any qualifications as to his rule.
For the beginning of Bulgaria’s dynastic crisis and its entry into the decades of constant confrontations with its southern neighbor, the information from the Namesake, according to which Sevar’s heir to the throne – Kormisosh, was a ruler from another ruling family – Vokil, who “replaced ” the genus Dulo.
Researchers have been guessing for years how this “replacement” of the family of the founders of Danube Bulgaria by Vokil was realized. Violent or peaceful, this change of the Dulo dynasty was yet to confront the new rulers of Bulgaria with an implacable enemy – the powerful Byzantine emperor Constantine V Kopronimus, under whom the Eastern Roman Empire began to seek its revenge against the Bulgarian state.
And this is what the Russian sources write:
Khan Cormesius (Krumesis, 721-738)
Maintains peace with Byzantium. During his time (723), some Jews, trying to avoid forced conversion, fled from Byzantium to Bulgaria.
Khan Sevar (738-753)
The last khan of the Dulo ruling family, with his death the name of the family disappears from the historical scene.
After Sevar, a fierce struggle for the throne began between different Bulgarian families. During the reign of Constantine V Copronymus, after his campaign in Syria and Asia Minor, he resettled many Syrians and Armenians in Thrace, through them Paulicianism (the apostolic Christian movement in Asia Minor in the 7th-12th centuries) became widespread.
Khan Kormisosh (753-756)
Sources report that Kormisos usurped power by removing Sevar (ending the Dullo dynasty). The period of the Bulgarian-Byzantine wars began with this inn. He reached Constantinople but was defeated. A period of instability and strife begins in Bulgaria, the khan dies as a result of a conspiracy. This phenomenon is often observed in history – a certain group of nobles during a crisis of power, declare their protégé as the ruler.
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